Posts Tagged ‘stories’

The 3 Keys To Telling A Good Story During A Speech

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011
Image Credit Stories Have Worked For Public Speakers For A Long Time

Stories Have Worked For Public Speakers For A Long Time

Once you’ve found a way to overcome the fear that we all feel when it comes to speaking in public, you move on to the next stage: wanting to become an effective speaker. I mean, as long as you are going to the effort, you may as well make it count! It turns out that you already have the skill that you need in order to make your message stick with your audience…

The Power Of Telling Stories

All too often speakers dismiss stories as being something that are only suitable for when we deal with children. The reality is that stories are how adults exchange information every day. Think of all of the books, TV shows, and movies that you’ve watched – they were all telling you stories.

In fact, mankind has been using stories to exchange information for over 1,000,000 years. The reason that we use stories is because they are a fantastic way to get our audience to remember what we’ve said.

Stories cause our audience to create pictures in their head. The better a story that we tell, the more vivid the picture that we paint in their minds.

The 3 Keys To Telling A Good Story

In order to tell stories that “stick”, you need to understand and use the 3 keys to great storytelling.

The first key is to invite your audience to listen to your story. This is often done by asking them a question that catches their attention and makes them want to know more. An example would be “Two months ago I was homeless and living out of my car. I met a man who shared with me three words that completely changed my life, would you like to know what they were?”

The next key is to tap into your audience’s imagination. What this means is that you don’t actually have to draw the entire mental image for them. If you provide just enough detail, they will gladly fill in the rest of the picture. What’s so great about this is that they’ll add far more detail to your story’s mental images than you ever could.

Finally, as you tell your story you need to make sure that you are having influence over your audience. This means that you need to carefully watch them and make sure that you adjust how you are telling your story in order to make sure that you grab their attention and don’t let go of it.

What All Of This Means For You

As speakers there are a lot of different things that we can do in order to accomplish our main objective – changing the lives of our audiences. One of the most powerful tools that we have at our disposal is storytelling.

In order to tell an effective and memorable story, you need to know and understand the three keys of storytelling: invite, imagine, and influence. Master these techniques and your stories will make a lasting positive impact on your audiences.

We are all born storytellers. This is a skill that somehow comes along with our human DNA. However, we can all become better at this skill. Use these three keys and you’ll become an even more effective speaker.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: Which of the three keys do you think is the most important for the types of stories that you tell?

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Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

You’ve got fantastic thing to tell your audience. They are lucky enough to be able to sit in the room when you give a speech. If you want to do a good job of connecting with your audience, then you’ve got to know and put into practice the most important secret that all successful public speakers already know.

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Posted in story | 2 Comments »

The Problem With Using Humor In A Speech

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011
Image Credit Sometimes Speakers Can Hang Themselves With Humor

Sometimes Speakers Can Hang Themselves With Humor

You are a great speaker. It’s just that if you use humor incorrectly, that might screw everything up. We’ve all been told that humor is a powerful tool that can make a speech that much more enjoyable for our audiences. That makes us all want to use humor and to use it more. However, if you screw it up, you’ll have to stand around and watch your next speech go up in flames.

Why Humor Does Not Always Work Out For A Speaker

Why can’t we all be stand-up comedians? Actually, the reason that we can’t is because as speakers we have a different goal than a standup comedian does: they just want to entertain their audience, we want to communicate information and motivate our audience to take action.

The biggest problem that I see speakers having with humor is when they simply try too hard. This unfortunately becomes obvious all too early on in a speech. What we see happening is when a speaker tries to tell a joke or use humor that they’ve seen somebody else use and for some reason it just doesn’t work – it’s not funny and the audience doesn’t laugh.

The problem here is that the speaker is trying to use humor that was not created for them. Humor is very much like a custom piece of clothing. If clothes have not been designed for your body shape then you’ll look funny wearing them. The same thing goes for humor. If you try to use humor that wasn’t designed for either your delivery style or the type of speech that you are giving, then it’s just not going to work.

What To Do If You Are Not Naturally Funny

Which leads us to the heart of our discussion. What should you do if it turns out that you are not a naturally funny person? We all know that humor is a powerful tool for speakers to use and each of us would like to be able to make the most of this tool.

If it turns out that you are lacking whatever it is that makes some people funny then don’t despair! Instead, understand that you can still use humor in your speech – you are just going to have to be very careful how you go about doing it.

The simplest way for all of us to incorporate humor into our speeches no matter how funny we may (or may not) be is to tell stories. The best kind of stories to tell are stories about things that have happened to us. Ultimately your goal needs to be to get the audience to laugh at the situation that you found yourself in. It’s easy for an audience to relate to you and so it’s just a small step to getting them to laugh at your story.

What All Of This Means For You

As someone who is willing to get up there and give a speech, you know how powerful humor can be. However, that power comes with a steep price – blow it and your whole speech can fall apart.

Humor does not always work out for speakers who try to use it. There can be a lot of reasons for this includes a failed attempt to use a canned joke that was created for somebody else’s style of speaking. Speakers who are not naturally funny can solve this problem by telling stories about themselves in a way that makes the audience laugh at them.

Yes, humor is a powerful tool. However, as speakers we need to realize that humor is simply a tool that can make our next speech that much more powerful. Taking the time to craft humor that works with our speaking style and the type of speech that we’re giving is the key to delivering a speech that will not only make our audience laugh, but also will make them remember what we had to say.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: What’s the best way to find out if the humor that you want to use will work with your next speech?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Communicator Blog is updated.
P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Communicator Newsletter are now available. Subscribe now: Click Here!
 
Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

As speakers we prepare and practice for all kinds of speaking situations: equipment failures, hecklers, unforeseen events, etc. We are all working all the time to become as good as Tony Robbins is. However, where I see more and more speakers screwing up is the one place where it should be easy for them to shine: accepting awards.

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Posted in humor | 1 Comment »

This Speech Will Be Delivered In (Good) English

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
Image Credit The English Language Can’t Be Completely Learned In School

The English Language Can’t Be Completely Learned In School

I’ve always spoken English. I never really spent a lot of time thinking about what it took to speak “good English” because it’s my native tongue. However, when I started working with speakers for whom English was not their first language, I quickly came to understand just how hard it is to give a good speech in English if it’s not your first language. That’s “hard”, but not “impossible”…

The Challenge Of Speaking In English As A Second Language

While working with clients, I’ve often been asked “so how can I improve my English speaking skills?” The people asking me this are generally well-educated and do an ok job of speaking English in personal conversations, it’s just when it comes to giving a speech that things seem to fall apart for them.

I always have to break it to them that there is no magic “silver bullet” to improving one’s English. So much of the language is based less on the words themselves and rather on how the words are used. Given this limitation, I offer them the following three suggestions:

  1. Dive In: the best way to pick up on how any language is being used in real life is to immerse yourself in it as much as you can. This means that you need to break out of your circle of friends who speak your native language and spend more time with English speakers. No it’s not going to be easy, but this is one of the best ways to learn.
  2. Read, read, read: I’m not talking about spending time with the classics of English literature, but rather taking the time to read the daily newspaper and weekly magazines (USA Today, Time, People, Rolling Stone, etc.). These media sources are written to be read by the masses and by studying how they communicate, you’ll both build your vocabulary and you’ll shape how you use your words.
  3. Get A Role Model: there’s got to be someone in your life that you believe does a very good job of speaking English. TV personalities are just fine for this task. Spend the time studying them, repeat what they say, and work to “become” them. This will not only improve your English language skills, but it will also give you the confidence that you’ll need the next time you are giving a speech.

Ways To Hide Any English Problems That You May Have

English is a goofy language. It has been built from so many other languages that it can be very difficult to master. Since it will take time to improve your English speaking skills, one of the things that you can do right away is to change how you give a speech in order to hide any English challenges that you are having.

The first thing that you can do is to start to use more one-syllable words. All too often I see my clients attempting to use complex multi-syllable words in order to impress their audience; however, since these words can be harder to pronounce correctly they just end up taking away from the impact of their speech. Using short words gives your speech a “punch” that will connect with your audience.

Next, you need to keep your sentences short. All too often non-native English speakers tend to create long and involved sentences that just seem to go on and on. The right thing to do is after you’ve created a speech take the time to go back and break-up any long thoughts into multiple short thoughts. This way you’ll be able to speak more clearly and connect with your audience better.

Ways To Improve The English That You Use In Your Speeches

There are several things that a non-native English speaker can do to improve a speech. Once again, these are probably best introduced over time as the speaker becomes more comfortable with using them:

  • Stories Are Good: every audience loves a good story. Taking the time to build a story that paints a vivid mental image will capture your audience’s imagination and will allow them to overlook any language issues.
  • Incorporate Places: the more that you can include places that your audience can visualize, the easier it will be for them to follow your speech. If you stumble over some words, it won’t matter because your audience is already picturing what you are talking about.

What All Of This Means For You

English is a fantastic language – so much can be expressed in it. However, it is among the most difficult of languages to learn. Learning to apply what you’ve learned about another language when you are delivering a speech in English is hard to do, but the results make it well worth the effort!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills

Question For You: What do you think the most effective way to learn a new language is?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Communicator Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

I’m not sure if this falls into the “good news” or “bad news” category, but it turns out that your audience may have already made up their mind about listening to what you have to say even before you open your mouth to speak. Do I have your attention now?

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Posted in language | 1 Comment »

Business Stories: Out Of Place Or On Target?

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
Stories Can Be A Powerful Part Of Any Business Presentation

Stories Can Be A Powerful Part Of Any Business Presentation

One question that I keep getting asked over and over by speakers that I am working with is if storytelling is such a powerful communication tool, then why isn’t it used more in business settings? It’s a good question, but the answer is a little bit complicated.

Where Did All The Stories Go?

I can’t tell you how many business presentations I’ve sat though that at the end I couldn’t have told you what was talked about if my life depended on it. It’s not that the speaker was necessarily bad, it’s just that nothing that they said caught my imagination and so nothing stuck.

This is where stories come in – people remember stories long after you get done talking. We remember them because it’s a fundamental way that humans have exchanged information for as long as we’ve been around.

For some reason, people have decided that stories don’t have a place in the environment of business – perhaps they don’t think that they are “grown up” enough and that facts and figures should only be used. This is completely wrong.

What Is The Value Of A Business Story?

Dr. Caren Neile has been looking into the use of stories in the workplace and she reports that Makingstories.net president Terrence Gargiulo has identified 9 key values to using a story in a business presentation:

  1. They empower the speaker.
  2. They can be used to create a particular environment.
  3. They can be used to bond individuals together.
  4. They can help your audience to engage in active listening.
  5. They can be used to resolve differences between both individuals and groups.
  6. They can encode information.
  7. They can act as tools to help with brainstorming.
  8. They can be used as weapons.
  9. They can be used to start or enhance a healing process.

The professional storytellers define the act of storytelling as being “… a face-to-face oral narrative that employs non-verbal communication and imagination“. One side effect of this definition is that when stories are told in a live business setting, they are much more powerful than when they are just written down.

What Kind Of Stories Work In Business Presentations?

Dr. Neile reports that Annette Simmons, who is the president of the company Group Process Consulting, believes that there are six types of stories that can be used in a business environment:

  1. Who I Am: this type of story is used to gain an audience’s trust by having the speaker explain where they are coming from.
  2. Why I Am Here: this story type is a way to communicate your agenda to your audience.
  3. The Vision: this story paints a vision of the future that the audience can see and can then decide that they want to be a part of it.
  4. Values-In-Action: this story shares the good things that can happen when the audience has shared values and the bad things that can happen when those values are violated.
  5. I Know What You Are Thinking: this story shows how connected the speaker is to the audience and that he/she has their best interests in mind.

How Can We Use Stories During Business Presentations?

Stories that your audience can relate to are the best kind of stories to use. This means that you need to spend the time to uncover the true stories that already exist within the organization: the successes, the failures, and people behaving both badly and wonderfully.

The power of business stories is that they provide one of the most effective ways to achieve agreement about how to resolve issues and meet goals. It’s  no longer a question of IF they should be used, but rather a question of HOW MUCH they should be used.

Questions For You

Have you ever used a story in a business presentation in order to make a point? How was it received? Did you feel awkward using a story? Does your senior management use stories when they are discussing the company’s vision and goals? Does this make you buy in to what the company is trying to accomplish? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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         The Accidental Communicator Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

I just got back from spending the better part of a week up in Chicago at a big health care conference (HIMSS09). This was an amazing opportunity for me to sit back and watch somewhere in the neighborhood of about 100 different presenters get up and do their very best job at communicating. One of these presenters was Dennis Quaid – the actor…

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Posted in stories | 6 Comments »

How To Write The Perfect Speech

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
The Perfect Speech Needs To Contain The Perfect Stories

The Perfect Speech Needs To Contain The Perfect Stories

Last week I had the opportunity to give the perfect speech. Now, you might be offended by this statement and are probably wondering just how I could become so full of myself, so perhaps I should explain myself. I had spoken in this venue four times before, I had been invited to speak again because they liked what I had had to say before, and I knew that I was going to be speaking about a month before I actually got up on stage. These are all the elements of a perfect speech.

Since I already basically knew what I wanted to tell this audience, this time around I really worked on HOW I said it – I wanted to make an impact in their lives. Awhile ago I had read an article in which Patricia Fripp boiled down what makes a really memorable speech: tell a story, make your point, tell a story, make your point, etc.

So I did. I ended up working six stories into my speech and then following them up with the point that I wanted to make. In order to make sure that I would fit the 30 minutes that I had available, I did some quick math: 30 minutes x 150 words/minute = 4,500 words in speech. I then did something that I’ve almost never done before.

I wrote out my speech word for word. I did this because I had read somewhere else that in order for you to “tune” a speech, you need to know exactly what you are going to say. This came out to be about five single spaced pages of text.

How I memorized this speech so that I didn’t have to look at my notes even once during my speech is a story for another post…

Do you tell stories during your speeches? How many stories do you work into a typical speech? Do you write your speeches out? How do you ensure that when you give the speech it doesn’t seem like you are reading them off of the page? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Posted in stories | 6 Comments »